Plant Extracts from South Tyrol: Olive Leaf, Milk Thistle & More

The olive tree has been the symbol of the Mediterranean since antiquity. Egyptians, Greeks and Romans cherished not only its fruits but also its leaves — Hippocrates wrote about olive leaves in his texts, and old Roman healers passed down the tradition. In southern Italian folk culture, olive leaves are among the oldest household remedies still remembered by grandmothers today.

Fresh olive leaves are particularly rich in oleuropein, a natural polyphenol also found in olive oil. It is this molecule that gives the extract its characteristic bitter-grassy note. In traditional phytotherapy, fresh leaves are especially valued because they preserve the full natural spectrum of the plant's constituents.

Traditional use: Diluted in water or unsweetened herbal tea. In the Mediterranean tradition, taken in cycles of several weeks — often around seasonal transitions.

Milk thistle is one of the most thoroughly studied plants of European herbalism. It grows wild across the Mediterranean basin — you'll find it in fallow fields throughout central and southern Italy, and Sicily. Its common name comes from a Christian legend: the white veins on its leaves are said to have been left by a drop of the Virgin Mary's milk. Hildegard of Bingen mentioned it in her writings as early as the 12th century.

The active compounds sit mainly in the ripe seeds. The flavonoid complex known as silymarin — composed of silybin, silydianin and silychristin — is among the most extensively researched plant constituents in modern phytotherapy. In Italian herbal tradition, milk thistle is one of the classic herbs accompanying the body's everyday work.

Traditional use: Diluted in a little water, ideally before meals. Typically taken in cycles of several weeks.

The artichoke is one of the oldest cultivated plants of the Mediterranean. In Italy it is also cuisine, identity, regional pride: from Roman carciofo romanesco to the violet variety of Tuscany, from the Sicilian mammola to the spiny variety of Piedmont. But beyond the kitchen, its leaves hold a place of honor in Italian herbalism — think of any classic Italian bitter aperitif, where artichoke leaf extract has been a key ingredient for generations.

The large, serrated leaves contain the most distinctive bitter compound: cynarin. This molecule gives artichoke its unmistakable taste — that fresh-bitter note that has accompanied Mediterranean cuisine for centuries and lives on in every Cynar and every Italian digestif.

Traditional use: Classically after a rich meal, in a glass of water. Often taken in cycles of two to three weeks in the Italian rural tradition.

Dandelion — the familiar yellow flower of meadows everywhere — is also one of the most underrated herbs in Western phytotherapy. In northern Italian country kitchens, its young leaves traditionally went into spring salads, picked straight from the fields. In medieval European folk medicine, it was used as a spring cycle herb. Italians call it dente di leone ("lion's tooth"), the same root the English name keeps from old French.

Both the root and the leaves are rich in bitter compounds, particularly taraxacin. That distinctive bitterness gives the plant its character and is the reason dandelion belongs to the erbe amare — the bitter herbs of the Italian tradition — alongside milk thistle and artichoke.

Traditional use: Typically as a spring cycle of four to six weeks. Taken in water or an unsweetened herbal tea.